cão vs co, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“cão” is an adjective and “co” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,065
“cão” frequency rank: #2,005
“co” frequency rank: 5070
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	cão	co
Definition	cruel, brutal, dominador	que

Letter map: cão vs co

Shared letters muted; letters that set cão and co apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

cão

2 ch

Grammar separator: cão vs co

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cão is anadjective and coapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5070, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cão is recorded at frequency rank #3,065, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈkɐ̃ũ̯/. co is at rank #2,005, tagged as apron.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 5070, this pair ranks #69,645 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cão vs co

Shared letters: co. Private to "cão": ã. Private to "co": -.

"cão" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "co" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cão" and "co" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cão" is an adjective and "co" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "cão" vs "co" - which ranks higher?

"co" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,005 in our Portuguese list, against #3,065 for "cão". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cão" and "co".

Full dictionary entry for "cão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "co" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #69,645 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"cão" and "co" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cão vs chau". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #69,645 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.